Prayer #11 - Acknowledging Good

In Hebrew, the word for gratitude can mean "thanks", "praise" and "confession."

The prayer called the Shemoneh Esrai "The Eighteen Blessings" is divided into three sections:

praise

requests

thanks

The Shemoneh Esrai begins with praises of God and His greatness. Then, follow the blessings each asking God for understanding, forgiveness, redemption, healing and so forth. The final section acknowledges that God is the Source of all life and good that comes our way.

It is this final section called Modim that we will explore now.

Most people will acknowledge the importance of showing appreciation for what they have, and openly admit how good they feel when people say "thank you" to them for doing a favor. They will also agree that saying "thank you" for receiving good makes the receiving of that good even sweeter. However, most people are unaware of just how important hakores hatov - "recognition of the good" -- really is.

According to Rashi, the 11st century commentator on the Torah, it was Adam's failure to acknowledge the good that God gave him, that helped guarantee his expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

According to tradition, when God questioned Adam about his eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, against the direct command of God, Adam pushed the blame off himself back onto God. Adam said, "The woman that You gave to be with me - she gave me of the tree and I ate." Thereby implying: "If you hadn't given me a wife, God, I wouldn't have eaten from the tree in the first place!"

However, that's like buying your child a hammer to play with, with which he breaks a window. After being scolded for his carelessness, the child says to his angry parent:
"What do you want from me? If you hadn't bought me the hammer, I wouldn't have broken the window!"

Not only has the child failed to show appreciation but he blamed his parent for the gift.

That's called adding insult to injury. Not only has the child failed to show appreciation to his benefactor for the gift he received, but, he turned the gift into a liability for which he had blamed his parent! How much of this can a parent handle?!

Had Adam only taken the blame on himself, say the rabbis, which would have stemmed from an appreciation of the gift of life and the gift of a wife, we'd all still be in the Garden of Eden!

Often, it is not much different with us.

Here God goes and gives us the gift of life, and, all the various different aspects that enhance our lives and those of others, and we barely feel appreciative; indeed we often feel down and blame God for it -- even criticizing Him. We use our bodies for sin and illicit pleasures, and then turn our backs on God. Many even go so far as to ignore His existence!

Thus, the Modim section of the Shemoneh Esrai focuses on the need to show appreciation for all the good in life, starting with the words:

We are thankful to you, for it is You, God our God, and God of our Forefathers, for all eternity; Rock of our lives, Shield of our salvation are You from generation to generation. We shall thank You, and relate Your praise -- for our lives, which are in Your hand, and, for our souls which are entrusted to You, for Your miracles that are with us every day, and Your wonders and favors in every season, evening, morning, and afternoon.

When we say these words, we should focus our intention and imbue the words with a strong sense of gratitude.

Because she was grateful to God, Leah, the wife of Jacob, merited to have a son like Judah, whose Hebrew name, Yehudah, is based on the same Hebrew root as "praise," l'hodot, and "thanks," modeh.

Thus the Torah writes, "She became pregnant again, and gave birth to a son. She said, 'This time I will thank God.' Therefore she called him 'Yehudah' ..." (Genesis 29:35)

Not only did Leah name him this way, but, in doing so, she imbued him with the ability to be modeh as well, which not only saved Tamar's life, but earned him the right to be king of the Jewish people. For, the word modeh can mean either "thanks" or confession/admission," and it was Judah's admission in the incident with Tamar (Genesis 38:26) that Jacob, his father, praised on his deathbed when confirming his son's right to the throne (Genesis 49:8).

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About the Author

Rabbi Pinchas Winston, an Aish alumni, is the author of over 50 books on Torah philosophy, the weekly parshah sheet PERCEPTIONS, and his site Thirtysix.org. He hosts the “Ask the Rabbi” radio show for Arutz Sheva (Israel National Radio), and is in the process of translating into English "Sha’ar HaGilgulim," the Arizal’s work on reincarnation (completed chapters can be viewed at: http://shaarhagilgulim.thirtysix.org/Shaar_HaGilgulim/Introduction.html).

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 4

(4)
Cecilia S. Constantino,
February 17, 2011 4:16 PM

In gratitude to God with all the blessings He has given.

This is a great article. You have u\enlighten me about Leah. Thank you for this new knowledge and I really appreciate it.
God bless you and your family.

(3)
Anonymous,
September 12, 2010 6:10 PM

11 parts

I have just finished reading your 11 parts to prayer. They are all very helpful. Even though much of what you write is beyond my level, it will be up to me to learn more about the Shema and Shemoneh Esrei. I also finished your 5 installments on Soul. Taking all 16 parts together it sets me on a course to appreciate and enjoy and find out more about prayer.
Thank you.

(2)
paula moorad,
June 18, 2001 12:00 AM

thankyou for your help and guidance

(1)
Simi Shain,
May 8, 2001 12:00 AM

Great Article!

really sums up what Hakoras Hatov - acknowledging the good - is all about!

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Since honey is produced by bees, and bees are not a kosher species, how can honey be kosher?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The Talmud (Bechoros 7b) asks your very question! The Talmud bases this question on the principle that “whatever comes from a non-kosher species is non-kosher, and that which comes from something kosher is kosher.”

So why is bee-honey kosher? Because even though bees bring the nectar into their bodies, the resultant honey is not a 'product' of their bodies. It is stored and broken down in their bodies, but not produced there. (see Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 81:8)

By the way, the Torah (in several places such as Exodus 13:5) praises the Land of Israel as "flowing with milk and honey." But it may surprise you to know that the honey mentioned in the verse is actually referring to date and fig honey (see Rashi there)!

In 1809, a group of 70 disciples of the great Lithuanian sage the Vilna Gaon, arrived in Israel, after traveling via Turkey by horse and wagon. The Vilna Gaon set out for the Holy Land in 1783, but for unknown reasons did not attain his goal. However he inspired his disciples to make the move, and they became pioneers of modern settlement in Israel. (A large contingent of chassidic Jews arrived in Tzfat around the same time.) The leader of the 1809 group, Rabbi Israel of Shklov, settled in Tzfat, and six years later moved to Jerusalem where he founded the modern Ashkenazic community. The early years were fraught with Arab attacks, earthquakes, and a cholera epidemic. Rabbi Israel authored, Pe'at Hashulchan, a digest of the Jewish agricultural laws relating to the Land of Israel. (He had to rewrite the book after the first manuscript was destroyed in a fire.) The location of his grave remained unknown until it was discovered in Tiberias, 125 years after his death. Today, the descendants of that original group are amongst the most prominent families in Jerusalem.

When you experience joy, you feel good because your magnificent brain produces hormones called endorphins. These self-produced chemicals give you happy and joyful feelings.

Research on these biochemicals has proven that the brain-produced hormones enter your blood stream even if you just act joyful, not only when you really are happy. Although the joyful experience is totally imaginary and you know that it didn’t actually happen, when you speak and act as if that imaginary experience did happen, you get a dose of endorphins.

These chemicals are naturally produced by your brain. They are totally free and entirely healthy.

Many people find that this knowledge inspires them to create more joyful moments. It’s not just an abstract idea, but a physical reality.

Occasionally, when I walk into an office, the receptionist greets me rudely. Granted, I came to see someone else, and a receptionist's disposition is immaterial to me. Yet, an unpleasant reception may cast a pall.

A smile costs nothing. Greeting someone with a smile even when one does not feel like smiling is not duplicity. It is simply providing a pleasant atmosphere, such as we might do with flowers or attractive pictures.

As a rule, "How are you?" is not a question to which we expect an answer. However, when someone with whom I have some kind of relationship poses this question, I may respond, "Not all that great. Would you like to listen?" We may then spend a few minutes, in which I unburden myself and invariably begin to feel better. This favor is usually reciprocated, and we are both thus beneficiaries of free psychotherapy.

This, too, complies with the Talmudic requirement to greet a person in a pleasant manner. An exchange of feelings that can alleviate someone's emotional stress is even more pleasant than an exchange of smiles.

It takes so little effort to be a real mentsch.

Today I shall...

try to greet everyone in a pleasant manner, and where appropriate offer a listening ear.

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Rabbi Twerski's new book Twerski on Machzor makes Rosh Hashanah prayers more meaningful. Click here to order...